My goodness but I’m slack about updating this. Granted, I have good reason. Following my last substantive post (way back on December 29), we kicked preparations for Wuffmeet into high gear. Wuffmeet is the New Year’s Eve party that takaza and I have put together for the last few years. It generally consists of getting some meeting rooms at a comfy hotel, supplying a few tons of food, and putting together various bits of entertainment every so often, interspersed with visits to the pool and hot tub. This year we welcomed 50+ friends (down from last year’s 70, but the calendar was unkind to us this year) and we started on Wednesday, December 31 and went clear until Sunday, January 4. It was an awesome shindig, and we had a great time hanging out with friends and meeting some new faces as well.

One of the highlights of the party was putting together a dinner buffet for 50. We’re definitely still new to this so we had a few kinks, but Dan sauteed 20 lbs of chicken and served that with homemade gravy over rice, I made four pans of the lasagna Bolognese that I mentioned a few weeks back, and Dan’s mom made about ten pounds of Swedish meatballs and gravy. For dessert, I made a Texas sheet cake (which came out like potent chocolately brownies) and Dan made two “Sock It To Me” cakes. I was very pleased with how it all worked out, though next year we’ll work on getting everything warmer sooner.

Another highlight was a group of ten of us taking the train to downtown Chicago for lunch at Heaven on Seven, my favorite Cajun place and just an awesome restaurant all around. The gumbo was divine, and my shrimp po’ boy was delicious. The bourbon chocolate pecan pie was completely over the top, but fun to share around the table. We capped off the afternoon with a quick trip to Millennium Park and a nice stop by Intelligentsia Coffee to warm up. A perfect quick trip into the city, and hopefully enough to whet the appetites of those who hadn’t seen much of it before.

Mostly, though, the best parts of Wuffmeet were the times spent chatting with friends. The morning coffee chats, sitting around the hot tub, or sharing a truly awful herbal liqueur. It was a wonderful time, and we’re already making plans for the coming New Year’s Eve. Even more scary, we’re kicking around ideas for the upcoming year that may involve the return of FRAC. Could it be? We’ll see what happens!

We got home from Wuffmeet at about 3 PM on Sunday, and Dan went to bed about two hours later. We’ve both been pretty rough since the weekend, though he’s definitely fighting off a nasty cold bug of some variety. That’s had us going to bed early each night and dragging a bit through the days, which makes for unexciting journal entries 🙂 Still, we’re working on some stuff in the background and should have some good stuff to show for it in the next week or so.